Copanion released GruntWorx, a Web-based application that captures and organizes tax return documents and data from clients.

Accounting firms need to become more intelligent businesses by better leveraging the time and knowledge of their professional staff, according to a survey released at the CCH user conference.

Most accountants have stopped worrying about their clients bringing bookkeeping in-house. Even with a client performing their own bookkeeping, there's plenty of work that only an accountant can perform, including making adjusting and closing entries, and producing compilation and review reports.In many firms that prepare tax returns for their clients, write-up software is used in lieu of a trial balance application to prepare the client's data for tax processing. Between these engagements, and the clients who would still prefer that you perform the bookkeeping, there's still plenty of need for a good write-up application in many practices.

While partner value and compensation continue to be topics that attract considerable attention at firm summits and practice management conferences, fear of the unknown often trumps any motivation for change or improvement.The Balanced Scorecard - which connects compensation to a firm's objectives - has emerged within many firms during the past few years, but some still resist any new approach. There must be a compelling reason to change, which usually results in winners and losers.

CCH DEBUTS NEW CORPSYSTEMRIVERWOODS, Ill. - CCH has introduced CorpSystem, a line of software for corporate professionals who do tax and accounting work.

Technology Group International has upgraded its enterprise resource planning software, Enterprise 21, with user interface improvements and extra features.

CCH has begun selling its document management system, ProSystem fx Document, in an application service provider version that allows accounting firms to access it online.

Sage Software announced general availability of Sage BusinessWorks 50 Accounting, Version 8, the latest release of its business management software.

Sage Software enhanced its Accountants' Network with new incentives for members while also announcing an upgrade to its Accpac Insight business intelligence software.

Business management software provider NetSuite is unveiling a new component to their application development and integration platform, SuiteFlex, in an effort to create more customization and ease for their customers.Launched today during the company's fifth annual partner conference, NetSuite Revolution 2007, the SuiteBundler component will allow value-added resellers to "bundle" together vertical systems, add-on applications, and end-to-end business process customizations developed with the other components of SuiteFlex -- SuiteBuilder, SuiteScript and SuiteTalk. The technology also includes a host of new micro-vertical capabilities spanning a variety of markets such as software, agriculture equipment dealerships, seaport marina management, point-of-sale retail, shipping materials franchises, electronics wholesale, distribution, pharmaceutical distribution, and human resources."What we've done," said Craig Sullivan, NetSuite vice president of product management, "is allowed these VARs with vertical expertise to take the NetSuite application and to deploy within it, using these technologies, their best practices, their expertise for specific target business, and then resell the application and expertise over and over again."Historically, Sullivan said, many VARs have worked with traditional software vendors that have enabled them to tailor systems to certain markets, but at a high price both for them and their customers."When they move from a traditional software model to the NetSuite application and understand the power of our capabilities," Sullivan explained, "They said, 'Well, hey, I want to be able to deploy this to this next customer of mine and why should I have to re-implement it?' We built this SuiteBundler capability specifically to allow them to very quickly and easily deploy those configurations and customizations out to target customers. Once they've replicated their bundle out to another customer, they can go and work with that customer to further tailor and configure it for their specific needs. We've taken away a lot of the heavy lifting, so to speak."SuiteBundler includes a three-step graphical assistant to help with the bundle-able components such as user roles, dashboards, custom tabs, lists and forms; a choice of three accessibility modes when making these bundles available to customers, including options for shared, private and an open-source community; a bundle repository where partners can go during their development process to save the customer-installation-ready version of their SuiteBundle, while continuing to work on the next iteration of their system in their NetSuite developer account; and installation process assistance."We see this as a revolution for VARs," Sullivan said. "They've long been concerned that [software as a service] would be a threat to their business, given that implementation times are relatively shorter. There is the perception that SaaS or on-demand applications are less customizable than traditional software. I think SaaS, at least in the way that NetSuite is moving forward with it, is actually an enormous enabler for these VARs to take their business to the next level and offer solutions to their customers that they could only dream about previously."For more information about SuiteBundler, visit www.netsuite.com.

As a financial services professional, one of your key responsibilities is to find balance between your credits and debits at the end of the month, the quarter and the fiscal year. But what happens when debits or credits are missing, or when you cannot access vital records online?You could be facing a major problem.

INTUIT ELEVATES GOODARZI AND WARD; COMBINES DIVISIONSTax and financial software provider Intuit Inc. has named Sasan Goodarzi president of its Intuit Financial Institutions Division and a senior vice president of the company, and tapped Jill Ward, vice president of its Accountants Central unit, to serve as vice president and general manager of its newly formed Intuit Accounting Professionals Division.

The development of future partners is of utmost importance in firms of all sizes due to the number of Baby Boomers now occupying those seats.What criteria is your firm using to select future partners? At what age do you select them for the partner track? Who is responsible for their development and learning the economics of today's accounting firm? Or are you simply waiting for another firm to acquire yours?

Intuit said it plans to avoid the electronic filing delays that kept many last-minute tax returns from being processed last April.

Brad Smith, an Indianapolis-based CPA, has created two add-in products for Microsoft Word that he is selling to help accountants and regular Word users employ formulas more easily in the word processor's tables.

Sage’s move to remove its top American management wasn’t unusual. It was dramatic. But it was not unusual in the sense that the leadership of much of the accounting software market has changed. Mike Braun replaced a CEO at Intacct who was sent packing. Steve Bennett is retiring from Intuit to be replaced by SVP Brad Smith.

ILumen has launched the iLumen Online Business Community, a service designed to combine online social networking features with iLumen's financial analysis capabilities.

Sage Software has selected a list of top-producing business partners for 2007.

Intuit is launching a nationwide series of seminars to tell accountants about the latest version of its QuickBooks software to help them service clients.

AccountantsWorld has released its Accounting Relief software with Web 2.0 features that allow accountants to collaborate with small business clients.